


I Thought You'd Like It

by withpractice_ff



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bodyswap, Dubious Morality, M/M, Science Boyfriends, Tropes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:20:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withpractice_ff/pseuds/withpractice_ff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki body-swaps Tony and Bruce.  It ends up being significantly less terrible than they anticipated.</p><p>(Fact: Tony thought it was pretty much awesome from the start.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Loki is around, sometimes. Tony thinks it’s a fucking horrible idea. So does Bruce. So does everyone, really--except for Thor, obviously, and S.H.I.E.L.D., most importantly. So they all just sort of bitch about it behind Thor’s back, and Loki keeps coming on their missions. It hasn’t ended in disaster yet, but Tony figures it’s only a matter of time.

When Steve brings this up--once, and with a lot more tact than Tony could have possibly managed--Thor assures them again that “my brother’s magics have been tempered by Forseti’s justice.” Tony immediately calls bullshit on classifying anything as _magic_ , because surely there’s a perfectly scientific explanation for it, even if they don’t yet know what that explanation is, and if they’d just let him come to Asgard he could have it nailed down in under--

And then Bruce kicks him gently in the shin and Tony shuts up about it, because Bruce has been taking a crash course in Wrangling Tony Stark from Pepper and he’s actually really good at it. Tony’s positive his success in the matter has nothing to with how good his ass looks in a pair of khakis that actually fit--pretty sure, anyway.

So Loki is around sometimes--occasionally at first, and then more and more often as he continues not to kill any of them with magic or his dry and cutting wit. At first, whenever Loki was around, Clint would suddenly make himself scarce, but even he’s seemed to make some sort of peace with the idea. Usually when Loki’s in town the archer finds himself a mission halfway across the planet, but then one day it’s a Tuesday and they’re all gathered in one of Stark Tower’s conference rooms, Steve efficiently filling them in on the latest threat, when Clint unexpectedly joins them. Steve stops mid-sentence when Clint enters the room, but the archer sits down at the table like it’s the most natural thing in the world, taking a seat right across from Loki.

“You give me the slightest excuse,” he says quietly, zeroed in on Loki like he’s the only one in the room, “and I’ll put an arrow through your neck.”

Holding Clint’s gaze, Loki nods, says, “Duly noted,” and the briefing continues like it never even happened.

The full story is that they sent Loki back to Asgard with Thor and assumed that would be the last they ever saw of him. What they didn’t bargain for was Asgard’s particular brand of justice, sending Loki back to Earth to pay off his debt directly to the world he’d tried to conquer. It makes a twisted kind of sense, but it still seems like a phenomenally bad idea, and Tony frankly can’t believe that about twice a month he actually fights alongside a guy who led an invasion against his planet and tried to enslave the entire populace.

“It does seem to be working out,” Bruce says cautiously, one night in the lab. They’re a couple of hours removed from a fight against some Doombots in Dumbo, and Tony’s been ranting about the god of mischief since Bruce woke up from his post-Hulk coma.

“When this all goes to shit,” Tony says, tapping a pipette against the metal tabletop, “I’m going to remind you that you said that.”

  


* * *

  


When it does go to shit, it’s not nearly as bad as it could have been. In fact, when you ask Tony about it in a few weeks, he’ll readily admit that it was pretty fucking awesome.

They're on day ten of everyone stuck together in the tower, on call for "eminent HYDRA movement downtown" that is seeming less eminent with each passing day. There's room enough for each of them to have their own floor--their own set of floors, really--but a couple of months ago Tony unveiled the top three floors of the tower as a sort of unofficial headquarters for their ragtag band of misfits, and so that's where they've been congregating. It's the longest they've ever been forced into each other's company without a task at hand to keep them busy, and Bruce thinks they’re all starting to poke at each other just for something to do.

It comes to a head that afternoon, when they’ve all found their way into the kitchen, not really sitting down together for a meal but each of them foraging on their own. Steve, Loki, and Thor are at the table with last night’s leftovers, Tony’s rooting through the cabinets for something high in sugar and low in protein, and Clint and Natasha are not very subtlety watching Bruce make an omelette, like if they stare at him hard enough he’ll suddenly be moved to crack another egg or four into the pan.

Loki, pushing some peas around his plate in a way that reminds Tony very vividly of himself at age five, makes a dig about how all Asgardian food tastes like dirt, and then Tony’s asking him when he last ate actual dirt, was it maybe when the Hulk face-planted him into that stand of cherry trees a few weeks ago? They’d been in Brooklyn again, fighting some mutated carrion flowers at the botanical garden. Tony will never, ever forget the smell.

Things escalate pretty quickly from there. Steve makes a token effort to intervene, but honestly, the two of them have been pushing each other’s buttons for days and he’s getting a little sick of playing moderator. Everyone else just sits back and watches the sparks fly, because this is pretty much the most exciting thing that’s happened in over a week.

“What, you can’t magic up some tiramisu? Some chicken pot pie?” Tony taunts, and it’s not particularly clever, but Loki sneers immediately so it’s getting the job done.

“I believe you misunderstand my abilities, though I can’t honestly say I’m surprised.”

“Can’t conjure up dessert, can’t stop Mean Green from spiking you into the petunias-- Remind me again what exactly you _can_ do?””

It’s at this point that Bruce finds himself very interested in his spinach and feta omelette.

“Shall I demonstrate, then?” Loki asks, and while about sixty percent of the room instantly and frantically answers in the negative, Tony tells him to bring it the fuck on.

So he does.

For a second, everyone’s vision goes white. But then the world swims slowly back into focus, and everything seems pretty much exactly the same.

“So did something just happen, or...?” Clint trails off, eying the room around him warily. Beside him, Natasha hesitantly holsters her gun, though the look she’s giving Loki pretty well communicates her intentions should he try to make a move.

“Perhaps Forseti has intervened?” Thor offers hesitantly. That’s not quite how things are supposed to work--Loki shouldn’t even be able to _attempt_ an act that could in any way be construed as an attack on the team--but perhaps there are some intricacies to Forseti’s decree of which he wasn’t aware.

Loki, however, looks like the cat that got the cream, and Tony is being uncharacteristically quiet about this apparent display of impotence. Steve feels something unpleasant settle in the pit of his stomach as he asks, “Tony...?”

“Is this what I think it is?” 

At the sound of Bruce’s voice, all eyes turn to him. He’s staring at Tony curiously, and Tony’s staring right back, wearing a look of wide-eyed horror that Steve’s never seen on him before.

“We need to get you to the containment cell,” Tony says, and then everyone starts talking all at once.


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha stalks into the containment center a few minutes behind the pair of scientists, only following them down to the sub-basement once she's confident the others are capable of getting Loki back to S.H.I.E.L.D. without her.

She can hear the sound of their voices--arguing, she recognizes immediately--as soon as she steps out of the elevator. She sees them before she can actually make out the words, the familiar figure of Tony Stark standing on the near side of the reinforced glass. Everything about him--the way he's carrying himself, folding in on himself like he's trying to hide in plain sight; the even measure of his voice, angry but in control; the nervous wringing of his hands, a tell so obvious and familiar she no longer needs to look to know when he's doing it--everything about him screams _Bruce_ , but it still takes a second for it to really sink in. Part of her still doesn't quite believe it.

She gets a little closer and now she can hear what they’re saying, snipping at each other over whether or not the precautions Bruce is insisting upon are actually necessary--well-worn territory with a brand new context. Tony--on the other side of the glass, wearing Bruce Banner’s skin--stops mid-sentence the second he sees her.

“So this is still happening,” he says. He doesn’t look as put out about it as she might expect, but then what do Tony Stark’s expressions look like on Bruce Banner’s face?

“So I noticed.” She comes to stand behind Ton-- no, behind _Bruce_ , peering over his shoulder to do a quick scan of the data scrolling across the screen in front of him. She has pretty much no idea what she’s looking at. “What have you found?”

Bruce spreads his--Tony’s?--fingers and the screen divides and expands, and Natasha still doesn’t know what she’s looking at but she waits quietly for Bruce to explain. Behind the glass, looking out through Bruce’s eyes, Tony is surprisingly quiet as well.

“We’re still waiting on the rest of blood work, but preliminary results are coming back exactly how you’d expect: for all it might be Tony’s brain in my body”--and Tony’s about to say something about that, but Bruce holds up a hand and Tony’s mouth snaps shut, lips pursing--”it’s definitely _my body_. Which is to say, still irradiated.”

“And so what?” Tony asks, arms folded stubbornly over his chest. It doesn’t make even a little bit of sense, but Natasha can’t deny the evidence: that is most definitely Tony Stark’s posture canting Bruce Banner’s hips, Tony Stark’s sass coming out in Bruce Banner’s voice. “You know a lot of other gamma hulks sharing a body with mild mannered scientists?”

“Blonsky wasn’t exposed to pure gamma radiation, he injec--”

“Yeah yeah, he also didn’t possess your alluring blend of incredible self-control, debilitating repression, and white hot rage.”

Bruce takes a breath, pinches the bridge of his nose. “You really want to get into this right now?”

“I’m not getting into anything, I am just pointing out the fact you’re making a pretty big assumption here, and frankly, I thought you a better scientist than that.”

“You are literally _in my body_ , Tony,” Bruce says, and Natasha is sure that if Steve were here, he would have stepped in by now to diffuse the situation. However, she is most definitely not Steve. So Bruce continues uninterrupted, “It’s not some giant leap in logic to hypothesize that the Other Guy didn’t make the trip into _your_ body with _me_. And _you_ haven’t spent the better part of a decade learning to keep him in check, so excuse me if I think it behooves us to exercise a modicum of caution.”

“You know, if that’s the case, you realize you can afford to really let yourself get angry?” Tony prods. “Tell me how you really feel?”

“You know perfectly well how I feel about it, which is why I don’t think it’s too much to ask for you to shut the hell up and let me run my fucking tests.”

And miraculously, Tony shuts the hell up. He raises his eyebrows at Bruce as if to say _Happy now?_ and Bruce gives him a little nod of thanks in return, and for a moment there is awkward, blissful silence.

“Should we try to provoke him?” Natasha asks, eying Tony, and Bruce jumps half a foot, seeming to have forgotten she was even there.

“That’s... probably not the best idea?”

“Have you tried to transform?” she asks, this time directing the question to Tony.

“The boss said no,” he snips, glaring at Bruce.

“Not until Thor’s back,” Bruce explains. “I know the cell’s held up to the Other Guy’s beatings in the past, but with a new variable in the mix... I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Natasha nods. “It might be a while; Thor wants to take Loki back to Asgard.”

“Because it’s going to be easier for him to switch us back from another planet?” Tony asks, frowning.

“You’re going to like this part,” she says, and Bruce is absolutely positive he’s not going to like it. “Loki says the spell will reverse itself in ten days, and there’s nothing he can do to speed things up.”

“Well that’s clearly bullshit,” Tony observes, stating the obvious.

“Ten days?” Bruce drags a hand over his face, sighing deeply. “What a fucking nightmare.”

“Hey! It’s not like he turned you into a frog, Princess Complains-a-lot.”

“I was referring more to the you-being-in-my-body side of this equation,” Bruce clarifies.

“My body is a temple,” Tony presses.

Bruce rolls his eyes. “Sure.”

“I have twenty-twenty vision!”

“Okay,” Natasha interjects, already done with _that_ conversation, “assuming we don’t have Thor, what’s the new plan?”

“Well I’m not staying in here for ten fucking days, I can tell you that much.”

Bruce frowns. “It _is_ unlikely the Other Guy would suddenly be able to break out of a cell that’s successfully held him on a number of occasions.”

“This is what I’ve been saying.”

“So we’ll wait for Steve, and then you can--”

“Unleash your ragey green id?” Tony finishes for him.

“Or _your_ ragey green id,” Natasha points out, and that’s enough to shut the both of them up.

  


* * *

  


“So this isn’t working,” Steve says, watching Tony go red in the face trying to conjure up the Hulk. “Maybe he can’t transform?”

“Or maybe his triggers are different,” Bruce mutters, eyes fixed on Tony’s vitals as they scroll across his monitor.

Natasha, leaning against the console, sighs and straightens herself up. If you want something done right...

“Stark.”

Tony exhales the breath he’d been holding and opens his eyes. “If you’ve got any bright ideas, Lady Deathstrike, I’m all ears.”

“Do you remember your fifth birthday?”

Immediately Tony’s expression goes blank. “I do.”

Natasha nods, confident that this will work. “Your father knew it was your birthday, of course. But you know how it goes--something comes up at work, but hey it’s after five and a drink will help the time move faster, help you think a little more clearly.”

“Natasha,” Steve says warningly. Bruce watches Tony’s face, the look in his eyes one Bruce has seen in the mirror every day of his life.

“And then the work is done--later that you’d anticipated, because isn’t that how it always goes--and you think, just one more drink for the road, not realizing how much you’ve had already. And when you get home after your long day, you just want to relax, but oh no, they expect you to smile, to act, to be this person you were never meant to be--”

“You have no idea who my father was,” Tony says quietly.

“They want you to care,” Natasha continues, “about these things that you can’t possibly care about, for which you have no frame of reference, and their expectations chafe at you. And Maria told you it’d be a small affair, nothing too extravagant, because she knows how these things can overwhelm you, but when you walk into your own home at the end of your long day it’s overrun with streamers and balloons and presents, loud music blaring from your dining room.”

She steps a little closer to the glass and Tony just stares at her, fists clenched at his sides. “It wasn’t that he sent you up to your room without so much as looking at you, or that he threw all of the presents into the garbage before you’d even had a chance to open them.”

“No,” Tony agrees, the word barely audible.

“It was the way he’d screamed at your mother, punishing her for loving you--for loving you more than she loved him.”

“It’s going to hurt,” Bruce warns him, and Tony’s skin begins to stretch and crack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kind words and kudos, y'all. I appreciate it!


End file.
